


And things are just fine.

by Hashilavalamp



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 1980s, Countries Using Human Names, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, as well as references to the cold war/berlin wall, references to wwii, vague sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:31:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hashilavalamp/pseuds/Hashilavalamp
Summary: The 1980s are just a crazy time for everyone, aren't they? There's something left unsaid between America and Germany, and it is about time something is done about that.In short: America pays Germany a visit with ulterior motives.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Finally uploading this here! It's thing longest and best GerAme thing I've written so far, and I hope you'll enjoy the read <3

It’s gotten late again; it always does, lately.

It’s like men don’t know how to get things done quickly and efficiently anymore, Ludwig grumbles to himself as he gathers up his things and tries to cram them into his briefcase without crinkling any papers. He knows that politics have never been different, that it always takes hours and days and weeks and months and years slaving over documents to come to any solutions, that is always chips away at you. But he’s got his own project now, and he finds himself sneaking through border controls and having secret meetings with Miss Hungary, all in addition to his usual duties. And, and isn’t he allowed to be irrational and stressed, just once?

His body feels like lead, heavy and clumsy, as he drags himself out of the conference room, the weight of his briefcase pulling at his arm. His head is buzzing with a million thoughts and worries. Like a dark cloud in his mind, and the bad weather won’t let up any time soon. He knows that, because it never does.

He pushes his way through the throng of politicians, through the halls, pushing pushing until he’s out and can breathe something other than stale and stuffy air. He inhales deeply, and even the air of Berlin feels good in his lungs-

And then he notices it’s raining.

And he didn’t come to work with the car.

Ludwig knows that he could call for a taxi if he wished to, but somehow this feels just right that he should head back home to his cheap apartment in the rain without an umbrella. It sounds petulant and gloomy even to his own ears, though there isn’t really much arguing with the impulse.

He is just about to step out into the rain—

“Hey Ludwig, hold up!”

Ludwig finds himself sighing, reluctantly turning around all the same though. He doesn’t really know why he bothers. A young blond man hurries down the hall, almost slipping in his haste and his polished shoes on smooth ground. His appearance looks even more disheveled now than it already had during the conference, the suit worn awfully casually and obviously no attempts made to neatly style his hair.

“America” Ludwig acknowledges the fellow nation curtly, shifting a little once Alfred has caught up with him, resting his hands on his knees as he pants. You didn’t run a damn marathon, Alfred, Ludwig thinks moodily.

“Phew! You sure are fast, Ludwig, I’ll give you that. Were outta the door before I even packed up all my stuff!” Alfred breathes, still red-faced as he straightens up. “Thought I wouldn’t manage to get a hold of you at all.”

The sound of this is ominous, and Ludwig shifts again, regretting that he didn’t walk away when he had had the chance still. He doesn’t know what Alfred would want from him now; the meeting is over. And these aren’t the fifties anymore. Ludwig doesn’t need to be monitored like a dangerous animal that just temporarily retraced its claws. Not anymore.   
He doesn’t really like being alone with Alfred.

“Don’t you want to ask why I tried so hard to catch up with you?” Alfred asks with a pout.

“I figured you would tell me.”

It’s almost amusing, the way Alfred’s eyebrow twitches in response. Ludwig remembers he didn’t use to understand the joy of upsetting others when you feel miserable yourself, but he supposes learning that is part of growing up. He has the weight of a century pulling him down now, should have been enough time to grow up.

“I wanted to ask if you’d like to go out for drinks. It’s been a long meeting back there” Alfred says, tapping his foot as though there were too much energy trapped in his body. Ludwig doesn’t even bite his nails anymore lately.    
But the offer of drinks does sound tempting.

“Thank you, but no” he hears himself say anyway, thinking of his dogs. They’ve been alone all day. Who knows what they chewed up by now. There’s actually a million reasons why going out to drink with Alfred is a horrible idea that he shouldn’t pursue further. Alcohol sounds like a great idea until the morning breaks, for one. Listing all the reasons would take all night, really. “I need to get back home.”

Alfred looks dejected for a moment, but somehow he finds it in himself to put on a smile that would put actors of tooth paste commercials to shame. _Disgusting_. It’s time for Ludwig to fret. He doesn’t like this smile at all.

“You probably have beer at your place, right? We can go there together” Alfred suggests, and the noose around Ludwig’s neck tightens.

“It’s raining and I didn’t get here with a car” Ludwig says lamely.

“We can take mine.”

“I’d actually rather walk.”

“Works fine for me! I have an umbrella, should be big enough for the two of us.”

Ludwig despairs.

.

.

.

.

They don’t really talk on the way to Ludwig’s apartment.

Ludwig just can’t really get himself to break the silence the same way he couldn’t outright reject Alfred. He never has anything to say to people, and he was actually sort of okay for the first five minutes, he didn’t think he’d feel himself missing conversation.   
Or maybe he just wants to tell Alfred to leave him alone now.

Each step brings them closer to where Ludwig lives, and it dawned on him that he can’t take Alfred to his ‘normal’ apartment. The one where he invites guests to when his boss tells him to, the one where he pretends to be whole and jolly, the one with the nice furniture and sterile rooms.   
They’re going to the one where Ludwig spends most of his days with his dogs, just a little place in a rundown house. Can’t even call it quaint, it’s crawling with communists and that folk. Ludwig knows he looks out of place there. He looks out of place anywhere because he hasn’t voluntarily followed a clothing trend for thirty years now, still wears his hair combed back, still marches like a soldier. But in this sort of neighborhood he is almost like a stain and he only chose it for the simple reason that this is the closest to the wall.

And he doesn’t really want Alfred to see that.

He doesn’t want to make the other nations worry and whisper behind his back again about how he cannot be trusted. Two Germanys are better than one, and all that. Half a weapon isn’t worth much, but don’t you put two halves together again.    
And somehow he doesn’t want Alfred to think bad things about him, or worse, ask questions. Or give him pitying looks when it was Alfred himself who laid the first bricks to this wall.

The rain relentlessly hits the umbrella over his head, and it drives his heart rate up. He glances over to Alfred to see if maybe he already knows where they are heading, already practicing his best gaze of pity, but thankfully he seems to just be looking at the houses around them, at the people rushing through the streets even at such a late hour.

Ludwig doesn’t feel relieved. His nerves are stretched out, ready to snap. He feels a bit closer to the end of the time bomb’s countdown every time rain splashes under his shoes and every time his shoulder bumps against Alfred’s.

And then they arrive, and Ludwig sees the way Alfred bites his lip next to him.

“Oh.”

That’s all he says then, before gesturing hastily for Ludwig to unlock the door. “I’m freezin’ here, let me in already.”

.

.

.

.

“Do you want tea or coffee” Ludwig offers quietly and awkwardly, opening his cupboard to look for the boxes.

Alfred hasn’t really commented on the whole living situation, even though there is loud music coming from upstairs and an unmistakable smell hovered around the stairwell, even though the wall is right there, right there, with Gilbert locked away on the other side. Alfred’s just sitting in one of the chairs around the plastic table, cooing at the dogs and looking perfectly merry.   
It makes Ludwig’s skin crawl with anxiety, like a mouse that brought the cat into its own home.  

“Beer” Alfred answers promptly with a laugh. “That’s what I came here for.”

Ludwig heaves a heavy sigh before he opens the refrigerator to retrieve two bottles of beer. He knows he’ll regret this. He’ll regret all of this. The moment he agreed to let Alfred come home with him he’s felt like this will all blow up in his face. You could make the point that he always expects things to end in disaster, but Alfred is a different sort of disaster.   
Things have been odd between them.

Ludwig’s heart pounds somewhere in his throat.

It’s going to go horrible, isn't it.  


Alfred thanks him for the beer and reminds Ludwig to call him by his human name. Ludwig grumbles a little, opens the bottles, and quickly begins drinking just to pretend he’s on his own for a moment. Beer can’t fix things, but it’s a distraction at least.

“What did you really come here for? You were inappropriately insistent about inviting yourself” Ludwig asks once he’s put down his beer, and his fingers tremble a little as he does so. He fixes Alfred with as intense a stare he can muster despite the phantom taste of bile on his tongue, and it’s reassuring to see Alfred’s smile droop a little until it’s lopsided, to see his shoulders sag.

“Well” Alfred says and pushes his beer around a little on the table, obviously nervous now. The noise is grating. With the other hand he pets Aster on the head. “Well. ‘Suppose I just felt like dropping by. I haven’t really seen you around much aside from meetings and— no no, actually, you know _what_ , I just wanted to hang out with you. And maybe talk a bit.”

Talk, about what. There isn’t anything to talk about with Ludwig, not anything you can’t say to him in meetings. Nobody talks to him more than they must, never more than what is considered polite. Ludwig doesn’t like the way Alfred won’t meet his eye, the restlessness written in his movements, the tension in this small ugly kitchen. It can only be bad.

“Talk, then” Ludwig says anyway. He’s too tired to drag things out and beat around the bush. Tired and anxious.

Alfred gives a short nervous laugh, the sound off-kilter and upsetting, and then he runs a hand through his unruly hair, trying to smooth down the rebellious strands at his forehead. “Straight to the point, as always, huh. Alright then! I can do that! So, Ludwig. I’ve been meaning to apologize.”

Ludwig doesn’t snap. It feels like he’s suspended in the air for a moment, trapped between deep confusion and indignation over such a cruel joke.

So he stares, and Alfred laughs, awkwardly.

“Please don’t look at me like that. I mean it. I’m trying to be sincere, like you told me to.”

“I told you not to lie.”

Alfred scoffs and actually glares back, now that the apology or whatever he thinks that was is out. It’s not comparable to the death that Ludwig used to see in those eyes, but it’s enough to make him want to hit him out of pure self-defense. Beating people into submission is what Ludwig has always been good at.  
Alfred must’ve seen the flinch because he settles down immediately again, muttering something to himself.

“Sorry. For that, first of all. But not just for that, I’ve… Been thinking. It’s been quite a while now since you’ve been doing things on your own and it’s, it’s all turned out. Well. Your apartment’s a bit crappy but everything else is perfectly fine. Remember, you were almost dead back then, and now you’re…” Alfred gestures wildly, but Ludwig doesn’t really get what it’s supposed to convey. “And things have been _crazy_. Pretty crazy ever since. And I’ve treated you pretty fucking shitty. Pushed you around and all that, god, I said things you’d kill me for if you’d heard them…!”

Ludwig sits still as a statue in his seat, looking at the slightly smudged glasses in front of Alfred’s eyes. Suggests eye contact, one of the tactics Ludwig’s taught himself. But he has noticed the bags under Alfred’s eyes before, the erratic behavior. He’s not as carefree as he used to be, as ignorant and deliberately cruel the way children are when you let them play with looking glasses and ants. Something has changed.

He feels a little sick.

It feels wrong to be on the receiving end on an apology.

There has been a lot of resentment buried beneath Ludwig’s stoic façade, resentment for which there is no room in professional business settings, resentment that he has very little right to after what he’s done. Forty years don’t make the number 6 million any smaller. And then there’s 25 million more. And 8 million onto that. And so on and so forth.  
All of that made it hard to justify the anger he felt at being a puppet. The rage that he felt over the way Alfred and Ivan took Ludwig and Gilbert and pushed them around like game pieces, driving ravines and walls between them while touting themselves as saviors.   
Ludwig had hated Alfred so damn much.

But the hatred faded. Slowly and surely, leaving a sour taste behind. But it’s not longer the caustic sea it used to be and more of a small steady creek in Ludwig’s emotional landscape.

He almost feels bad for it. Feels bad for not wanting to kick Alfred out and tell him to never talk to him again. He should owe his people and his brother a little more than this.

Ludwig takes a last sip from his beer despite his bottle being all but empty already.

“It’s fine” is all he says.

.

.

.

There had been dreadful silence for a while, until Alfred bullied him into getting more beer from the fridge. And then insisted they turn on the radio, turning up the volume high enough that it drowns out the music coming from the apartment above.

It’s such a silly and petty move, but Ludwig still finds himself cracking a smile, just because it’s ridiculous and because Alfred decides that the music from the radio should be danced to.

Could very well be nostalgia, since Alfred once tried so hard to teach him these fancy modern dance moves back in the twenties, when things were good and fine and the world was right for once. Nostalgia is the only thing that gets good feelings out of him anymore these days.

Alfred has the sleeves of his dress shirt pushed up all the way to his elbows and Ludwig doesn’t even know how to describe the way he moves, which shows him once again that he should have died in 1945 because he doesn’t adjust to the world around him anymore, or so it feels. He learned how to be a politician but he’s not become more human.

It’s nice to watch Alfred anyway, because this is better than digging up bad memories, and because Ludwig has started to feel a different sort of way about Alfred some time ago and that’s why this is gonna be a disaster.

The apology wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him.

A break between songs comes on and Alfred takes the moment to run a hand through his hair and give Ludwig a radiant grin, having quite literally shaken off the horrendous mood of before. It must be so easy for him. “You got some pretty bitchin’ music on your radio, I gotta say!” he exclaims and Ludwig finds himself staring again, trying to decipher what ‘bitching’ is supposed to mean in this context. He knows this word, goddamn. His English is perfectly fine. Alfred’s is the one that leaves much to be desired.  

“Bitching” Ludwig repeats thus, and gives Alfred a look. Alfred returns the look just as confused, until he finally figures out what Ludwig is trying to ask. “It means, god don’t you know that, it means something like ‘cool’!” he explains and tuts as though Ludwig had made a terrible blunder. “You should know that one.”

“Sorry for not being up to date with all your colloquial vocabulary.”

Alfred’s blue eyes light up dangerously in the face of Ludwig’s embarrassed defiance. “Hey, you are in no position to complain about my slang! I remember that one time you said this hilarious word, what was it again—“

“ _Knorke_ ” Ludwig supplies with his cheeks burning hot, and Alfred dissolves into a fit of giggles, startling the poor dogs with the noise. It’s not _that_ funny, although Ludwig hates that he ever allowed that word to enter his personal speech pattern.

The next song comes up but this time Alfred heads to the fridge again, chuckling to himself. Two cold beers. And then Alfred says

“Y’know, I like you, Ludwig.”

Ludwig’s natural response to such a comment would be a somewhat confused ‘thank you’. But the words don’t come out right, because they don’t come out at all. Instead his stomach lurches and his hands sweat a little because some part of his brain makes him interpret more than there is, and then he feels guilty and horrible and wrong.

“…are you okay?” Alfred asks with a frown. “Got a little pale there, buddy. Am I that horrible.”

“I’m fine” Ludwig assures him, feeling anything but fine. The music sounds quieter now, even though it would have gotten him several noise complaints at this hour in one of the nicer neighborhoods. He can’t hide himself in the sound and just watch Alfred have a good time.

Alfred shrugs eventually when no further response follows and saunters back to his seat, squirming again as he had when they first entered. Suspicious. But Ludwig tries not to think too much about it. Had he done something wrong again? Ignored some social cue? Done something upsetting without meaning to?

And then Alfred abandons his seat entirely and walks back over to Ludwig.

And it feels like a strange dream when Alfred suddenly straddles his lap.

Everything in his brain is lagging horribly, trying to catch up and process this sudden turn of events. Alfred’s face is too close to his, just centimeters away, he can feel the other’s breath on his skin. His heart returns to his throat all of a sudden and he fights the urge to put his hands on Alfred’s hips, even though he’s itching to. Maybe this would feel less unreal if he touched Alfred like that.   
but then it might be another joke to torment him.

So he doesn’t move. Can’t burst the bubble if he doesn’t move. He’s itching to touch because Alfred is warm and because he’s had dreams like this that left him feeling sick but felt great while they lasted. The music is just a background noise now, a hammering in his head, and Alfred’s eyes are too intense. Ludwig can’t look, so he tries to focus on anything else. That stain on the glasses. Alfred’s eyelashes.   
It feels familiar in a way, reminding him of the last time they were alone together. The way Alfred had looked at him, how close they were. Music coming from somewhere. Something scandalous between them left unspoken.

“This okay?” Alfred whispers, and somehow Ludwig manages to nod.

Ludwig forgets how to breathe when Alfred kisses him.

.

.

.

Ludwig has only kissed once in his life.

It was when he was still an empire and he found himself underneath a mistletoe with a girl, and with sweaty palms he had let himself be coerced by tradition into kissing her. It was a sobering realization that he wasn’t inclined this way, no matter how much he’d hoped in the dead of night, too scared to consider the alternative.

Because only once had he been close to kissing somebody he had actually wanted to kiss. He was still an empire then too, proud and tall and miserable, and it wasn’t a girl that time. It was a young soldier who didn’t know what Ludwig was and thought he was a man of the military like him, another hopeful recruit. He’d called Ludwig handsome, had touched his hand. Ludwig had read an article about this, about men who liked other men. About _homose--_ And he wanted so badly for it to not be some mental defect, some fault in his construction, for it to not be illegal, just so he would feel brave enough to lean in and kiss that soldier.

He knew how he was inclined by then and he hated it.

And now he’s being kissed by another man and it feels so good that he doesn’t have the capacity to be disgusted. It feels like there’s a shift in his perception, like a puzzle piece neatly sliding into its place where it belonged all along. It’s damning and exhilarating all at once.  
If only he knew how to reciprocate and not sit there stiff as a board, confused and dazed and lost in the foreign sensation.

But Alfred pulls back, and laughs that horrible nervous laugh again.

“Uh” he says. “Sorry ‘bout that. Not okay after all?”

“It’s fine” Ludwig responds automatically and could slap himself for it, because this is not what he should be saying. His lips are tingling. He licks over them but the sensation doesn’t disappear and it’s making him panic just a little.

Is this how kissing feels to people usually?

He doesn’t know whether his face must be white as a sheet or red as a beet. As his mind finally works on making sense of any of what’s going on, the horror trickles in, the decades of conditioning and being told that he is ill and the decades of thinking he is undesirable anyway bearing a terrible fruit. But he’s thrilled as well. Absolutely thrilled.   
He feels a bit lightheaded because maybe that is a bit too much for his brain to handle.

“I haven’t kissed before” he elaborates, tone deadpan, and once again Alfred laughs out loud. It stings, like your skin does after you’ve been slapped in the face, and Ludwig instantly tries to recoil. The chair he sits in almost topples over and he feels a bit vindicated at Alfred’s hardly dignified yelp of surprise.   
Joke after all, huh.

Well joke’s on Alfred because the kiss was actually nice for Ludwig, so he walks out of this with a good experience at least, it doesn’t matter if his reputation is—

“Sheesh, stop glaring! Please! I’m not—laughing at you. Do you have any idea how damn nervous I am? F-fuck, fuck this” Alfred laughs, breathlessly, and his fingers dig into Ludwig’s shoulders with surprising force. “I just think it’s, cute. ‘S all. I was afraid I got signs wrong or somethin’.”

That’s a completely wild notion to Ludwig.

That somebody would be nervous about him. Not nervous about him killing them, but about a kiss. Nervous because he could say no, and that would actually hurt somebody. Huh.

“…So… Okay if I kiss you again? We can practice, if you like.”

This time Ludwig pushes up against Alfred as much as he can, surprising himself by how forward he is. Perhaps that is what a lifetime of deprivation does to you, he thinks in the back of his mind, as pathetic as it is that he has longed for this so much. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing, just tries to clumsily match the movement of Alfred’s lips against him own.   
Alfred pulls back at one point to take a deep breath again, and somehow Ludwig lets out a quiet laugh of his own. Alfred’s habit sure is infectious. Alfred stares at him, and then crushes their lips together without any further warning. It feels indescribable. (Well, it’s kind of painful actually. Better not do that again.)  


Ludwig’s whole body thrums with excitement at the strange events, the memory of sensations and vague hopes mixing pleasantly, when Alfred drags him to his feet and pulls him to the bathroom first and then when he realizes he got the wrong room, takes him to the bedroom.

Ludwig would say he’s never thought much about the details of such activities. Reality is a bit different but somehow as soon as Alfred is kissing him again with fervor, all the things his mind has come up with turn muddled and vague again. After all he’s imagined how a kiss would feel like and his imagination is pretty lackluster in that regard, as it turns out.

He doesn’t know what to expect.

Alfred tells him they can’t really do much tonight, something is lacking it seems, but he still wants to do something for Ludwig. If Ludwig is okay with that.

Ludwig doesn’t object when his shirt is unbuttoned and the lips he’s felt against his own wander across his jaw down his neck, and he’s too high-strung to risk making any attempts at speaking. It’d come out as something else entirely, he knows that as he bites his hand to help stifle one of such sounds.

Alfred thinks it’s funny because apparently _everything_ is funny or _endearing_ to him, and then brushes his lips along Ludwig’s stomach so Ludwig doesn’t have the mind to be angry.   
He’s got half a mind to call this off though, he feels a bit nauseous again if he’s honest. He didn’t think it’d go this fast. He’s shaking as Alfred struggles to remove his belt, and not a word comes out his traitor mouth despite his internal protest.  
But Alfred notices, and asks.

This is wild.

It’s strange to have Alfred of all people be considerate, after he made a name for himself by being a man with crushes whatever protest rises against him with nothing more than a smile. How do things change like that, Ludwig wonders.   
He might actually like this Alfred. Ludwig almost blurts it out.

He’s calmer after a while of Alfred just sitting on the bed next to him, touching him carefully and talking nonsense as he’s wont to do. Even in a situation like this. Ludwig realizes that what scares him isn’t the act itself maybe, but the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. That he’s just lying there and having things happen to him and that is a terrifying concept.   
Alfred tells him he’ll stop if Ludwig just asks, so isn't it really him who's in control?  


(Then Ludwig remembers that this is still technically illegal action between two men. Oops. Now that’s scary too, but he won’t point that out. He jaywalked the other day because he was in a hurry, so he’s a criminal already.)

Ludwig’s pants finally come off together with his underwear, and Alfred’s lips are back on Ludwig’s skin. The dying embers in the pit of Ludwig’s stomach come to life again, the fire is rekindled with vengeance this time, and Ludwig bites back a shuddering moan when Alfred takes him into his mouth.

Ludwig doesn’t really know how long it takes, and decides it doesn’t matter too much because it’s _good_. Too good to care about anything much at all.

.

.

.

“Are you falling asleep?” Alfred asks gleefully a while later, when they’ve settled down and crawled under the covers. Apparently Alfred has no reservations about his money spent on a fancy hotel room going to waste and instead is perfectly happy about staying in a horrible apartment with a wreck of a man.

“Shush” Ludwig replies tiredly and turns on his left side, facing away from Alfred.

“Fine fine. You better make me some _bitchin'_ breakfast tomorrow” is the muttered response, and then Ludwig feels Alfred’s bare back pressing against his own. Another foreign experience that Ludwig cannot decide how to feel about, but he doesn’t feel like pulling away, so that points at positive.   


It _is_ nicer like this. Nicer than falling asleep thinking about all the things he has to do and about how sick Gilbert has looked the last ten years. About the conspiracies brewing, about meetings in Budapest, about the crumbling east.   
Nicer to think that he is desired.


End file.
